Zanieboy Gialon didn’t hold any celebrations he surely deserved after breaking away to dominate the Philippine Golf Tour’s (PGT)Sta. Barbara in Iloilo stop last Friday. He has set his sights on a career-first for this week.
“I haven’t won back-to-back titles in my career,” Gialon, now a six-time winner, told the Inquirer over the phone in Filipino. “Hopefully, I get lucky again and I get to check that off my list.”
The Davao native did not veer away from his normal routine, determined not to let this latest chance slip without a fight like what happened at Splendido in 2022, which came after he won at Lake Caliraya the week before.
“I just don’t like Splendido for whatever reason,” Gialon went on. “That course is beautiful, but it doesn’t fit my eye.”
The Binitin layout in Murcia town in Bacolod will be the venue of the ICTSI Bacolod Golf Challenge, another P2.5-million event, and Gialon has high expectations there starting on Tuesday.
“It’s a relatively short course, and I just hope that my putting clicks the way it did in Iloilo,” Gialon, who came close to winning back-to-back in 2017 at Forest Hills only to be beaten by Antonio Lascuña by three, said. “That’s what it will all boil down to with Binitin being short.” INQ